Foodie Penpal: April Goodies

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, 

it would be a merrier world." 

-- J.R.R. Tolkien, author of the Lord of the Rings trilogy

Photo courtesy of Joyeuse Photography

I'm on a 'learning curve' kick. I have been teaching myself about as many things as possible, and trying new activities and forms of expression. 

The latest part of this movement found me signing up for Foodie Penpals at the encouragement of Corey (check out her blog on our blogroll, and here). It's a fun monthly 'club' of sorts for folks who love food. We get paired up randomly with someone to whom we send a package of goodies, and another someone to receive goodies. Everyone wins!

My first Foodie Penpals package came from a cool person in San Francisco, Niki, whose blog is Salt & Pepper. You have to see it for yourself - she's been using an app called Cinemagram to animate pics! 

The theme of this gorgeous package was organic, natural & sustainable (she is, after all, in SFO!). I absolutely LOVE how the items were wrapped in metallic tissue paper. The box included:

• Silly Cow Farms hot chocolate
• TCHNO 67% cacao dark chocolate with citrus notes 
• Black mission fig jam from 'the girl & the fig'
• Dark chocolate almond butter cups from SunSpire (made with MaraNatha almond butter - I have a huge jar of it in the fridge, ha!)
• Pomegranate vanilla tea from The Republic of Tea
• Chamomile tea from Yogi
• Organic spaghetti from bionaturæ
• French onion and spinach dip mixes 
• Cool paper drinking straws (compostable, methinks) 

I'm going to brainstorm some new recipes, and am thinking of a tea-poached salmon with a little fig-balsamic glaze, nested in citrus-scented herbed spaghetti. Greg will be the guinea pig ... er, 'king's taster' for me.

I sent a Tex-Mex themed package to Heather, who has a great blog called Kiss My Broccoli.

The Foodie Penpal concept started with 30 people a few months ago, and has grown exponentially. Here's how Foodie Penpals works:

• Penpal pairings are the 5th of every month by Lindsay, a.k.a. The Lean Green Bean
• Find the foodie items you'd like to share ($15 limit) - themed or local items are fun
• Mail your box of goodies by the 15th
• Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog. 

So, there you have it. It's an easy way to take a virtual culinary road trip around the country - without the high gas prices. 

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